There's a vendor that I became friends with my first year at Carlisle many years ago. He loves little blue and white FoMoCo NOS boxes. He introduced himself and looked over my NOS stuff. He picked out a lot. He pulled out 5 crisp $100 bills. I knew I could sell them for more one at a time but I needed the cash for my trucks. Then he came back and bought some more for another $200. We became friends. Turns out he is a soccer guy. He knows my former college coach who later moved on to UNC-Greensboro. A year ago I asked him if he sold the stuff I bought from him. He said he hasn't tried to sell most of it. To him it was the thrill of the hunt. I don't know who was watching his vending spot when he was at mine. If he breaks even he is happy. He loves to talk and travel and it gets him out of the house.

 

I'm for sure not in a mood to stockpile parts any more, after seeing others' "collections" end up at the scrappers. A member of the local Early Ford V8 chapter died 7 yrs ago, and the chapter held a sale on his 4-bay garage full of stuff. He had at least 30 starters and 30 generators, 12 sets of heads of all kinds, transmissions, rear axles, etc. Not a lot of it sold. I bought a set of EAB heads in primo shape for $20, mostly to help out his widow. Also 6 hubcaps that matched mine for $25. They are gathering dust in my garage now.

 

The demand is out there, but it takes effort to connect the buyer and seller. Too often I run across sellers who don't know details about what they have and simply list as "old Ford" and think it's worth it's weight in gold, or selling their whole family members stash, but have no inventory and insist on selling as a 53' trailer load. Then you have sellers who ONLY list their inventory by cryptic casting/part number, and so they miss out on the more casual/application based buyers. And we can't forget the social vendors who set up booths all the time with sky high prices and never changing inventory but kabitz with everyone else doing the same...

Now me personally, I'm not selling - I'm buying... if I can find the things I'd use...

 

An acquaintance passed away a couple of years ago. He had a barn full of '37-38 Buick parts, some sheet metal parts, trim pieces and mechanical parts. His son came up to me at the funeral and asked if I wanted to buy his dad's Buick parts. I told him I didn't want to discuss it at his dad's funeral, told him to contact me in a month after everything had calmed down. Well he did contact me a while later and wanted me to make an offer. I don't make offers unless I have an idea of what the seller thinks something is worth. After about two years he told me what he thought was good price and I agreed to buy everything he had. I figured I could flip the parts for decent buck. He knew it and just seemed to want to get the parts out of his dad's storage. Less than a week later he informed me his brother wanted the parts. This was after two years of him asking me to buy them. His brother moved everything 40 miles further away and the wanted to know if I was interested. Now Im glad I didn't buy the parts. I would be sitting in a barn full of parts and $2000 poorer. I had two Buick fenders that took me over three months to find a buyer. I'm glad I dodged that bullet.

 

hear it all guys. one of my best friends has a full 29 model a sedan delivery body. fiberglass rear sections were a kit from decades back of which i understand are no longer made , the rest is all ford steel .blasted, metal worked and primed , not one bite . same with a fresh built and titled 29 sedan delivery, 100% ford steel, siting on a custom frame, 350 chevy, turbo 350, fresh rebuilds on both 9.0 narrowed ford rear, another not one bite.


car wise i have to ask, am i alone in thinking our loved classic rides are dead and have been replaced with import 4 and 6 noise? as around me that's what i hear and see, and lots are pricy jdm cars, right hand steering , mini 4x4 trucks . the ones that are about the size of my side by side rhino.

 

Multiple reasons come to my mind. First, it's winter, and not everyone has a heated shop out of the weather. Secondly, Christmas just happened, and most people are broke due to that combined with with our tanking economy and wonderful inflation. And thirdly, most of the lemmings out there think the world ends at Facebook marketplace nowadays. I watch the Facebook pages dealing with our trucks, and I want to literally scream "Quit pissing around here and go to FTE where people know what they're talking about and can actually help you!" And, finally, the overall morale of the country is just in the tank. Nobody has the heart to do something fun like restoring a vintage vehicle. That might make some of you upset, but it's the honest truth.

 

There is still a small glimmer of hope. Help could be on the way.

Jim

 

I remember you posting about that.

Isn't it funny how a deal can look like a steal, and with just a little different perspective, can turn into a complete waste of money? Totally dodged a bullet unless you were building two of those cars and YOU needed every bolt he owned.

When I was 20 and barely had any credit and a very low limit on my card, ( I never used my card EVER) I was involved in a tight nit community of hot rodders and such and there was a very special extremely limited book for sale for some ridiculous amount. The last time a book had been released like it, they were sold for $500 each and current resale value was ~$1000.
I tried buying two books but was declined and thought I lost a great opportunity....now I thank god my little naive butt didn't get taken to the cleaners and left with a couple stacks of bound paper instead of my $1000 spent.


This nonsense of people wanting $15k-20k for rusty old trucks(chevy blazers, plain-jane mustangs, stock camaro) is gonna end up with a lotta people who wasted way too much money on their crappy not-special car. $5k for a rusty flathead F1......just ridiculous, and not sustainable. But when there is a "market bubble" that pops in our beloved hobby, THEN what becomes of us? Do all of our vehicles/parts become less valuable?

I have enough projects to last me 15 years, I'm done for a while.

 

I went to my first swap meet since relocating to TN...sold lots of 34 and 56 parts cheap and sold a 54 DeSoto grille to a guy who was building a custom 50 shoebox. Sold one of two No-Limit aluminum gas tanks. What got a lot of looks were a couple of 35 Chevy grilles and a 40 Ford hood but no sales. I had a couple of Wildwood big brake kits that got no real interest. TACSON was a couple rows over and had a lot of F100 stuff but I'm not sure how much he sold other than enough to pay for the stall. Hard to say where the market stands on any given day but I do know that I would trade all my stock OEM driveline/chassis parts for 36 Ford rear fenders and 32/34 Ford garnish moldings!

 

I still sell. I do the F100 Grand National show in May. It's a lot of work. I spend countless hours looking for relics, getting them home, my time to dismantle,
then load up an enclosed trailer, fuel, wear and tear, and swap spaces all for someone to think I'm over priced. I bring the best I have to the show and the best is expensive!
Never hurts my feelings for some people to get upset and walk away. Walk a mile in my shoes.

I always have 75-150 items listed on eBay at any given time. There again, all the above listed that I do to obtain parts, then to ad eBay fees AND eBay fees for the shipping! Yes if I sell an item for $100 eBay takes 14% of the sale AND 14% of the shipping. So now I have to adjust shipping Charges to cover that. I'm not selling for my health
Then I have to supply boxes, bubble wrap, printer ink,and when the items are too large for the mail box I have to drop off at the post office.

My shop is a mess and I should never bring home another part as there is a lifetime of stuff here to move.

and now I leave you as I have to go do my chores, feed the chickens, gather eggs and shovel chicken S**t

 

I agree with Doc on everything he said but the malaise in parts selling has been going on for.some time. 10 years ago I .made some OK money selling on eBay. I'd list a part at just below what I felt was a good price and watch the bidding start like fish when you throw food in the water. Very rarely the part wouldn't get bid up to a price I'd wouldn't think of paying. I hadn't sold anything for quite a while and when I did I'd get only one bid. I sold a non working '48-50 truck radio in OK physical condition for $50 about two years ago. Before that if one was listed it would be bid up to $200. I also sold a pair of OK '48-52 vent windows some years back. They were OK but not great so I started them at $25, surprised the heck out of me when they sold for $125. Now I have a set of '56 wing windows and there is absolutely no interest. Brand new reproduction windows sell for $400 each.

Hopefully things get better with warmer weather I still have my now "barn find" panel truck I want to sell

 

Bob, when I was selling neat and what I call flashy NOS parts on eBay I would do a 7 day auction and watch the bids go up. But other stuff that won't have a lot of interest I start with a buy it now with accepting a best offer.

 

I changed all of the stuff I had listed three times over to BIN type of sale, still nothing. I suppose I could drop all the prices to a buck and allow bidding again but then I'd end up selling everything for a buck and UPS will make ten times more than I did.

 

I think another factor in the condition of this hobby is the cost of getting into it. When most of us got into this hobby we were able to pick up a drivable vehicle for around $500, it might not have been pretty but it probably moved under it's own power. Now the literal junk out there being sold is in the $5K+ range. That's for a totally rotted out hulk with a "I haven't tried to turn it over" engine and no title. It's a lot easier to justify buying a 2000 Honda and putting a bench on the truck, fart can muffler and pulling in the wheels at a 30% angle. Why would a kid flipping hamburgers pay $5K for a pile of rust and then basically have to buy another complete truck in parts to get the thing to move?

 

I agree.

Between the cost of an build and the fact that the younger generation probably wants what their friends drive.

This hobby is more for the older folks who have the disposable income to do an expensive project. Many probably buy the kind of vehicle they dreamed about when they were young, but could not afford.

I tried rebuilding a 1959 Chevy pickup when I was 15-16 years old. I stripped it down to the frame and realized I could not afford it. I put it all back together and sold it for $100 more than what it cost. I then bought a 1971 VW beetle that I could afford to keep running. I never did another truck project until now with my 55 F-100. I figure that I will try to do it right, once.